Halls of Reflection...Err Retardation?

Yeah that's right you heard me, I said it. The Halls of Reflection, the Third and final dungeon in the chain of new dungeons and the current bane of my entire existence as a hunter. Well, I take that back...It was the bane of my priest until I beat it into a couple poor little pugs that CC is Yummy.
It tastes like chocolate...if you were wondering.
Amazing how that works isn't it? Half a dozen wipes and the priest says. "CC plx?" suddenly it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Yes Thank you, I'm the winner of the Ms. Obvious contest. *gets a hat and t-shirt for her efforts*

Really though in all honesty? WHAT is so complicated about standing in the middle of the room, or by the door and using some good old fashioned crowd control? Most of us know what that is, a large amount actually uses it. So tell me why as a hunter or a priest, you're making me stand in the corner and get cluster%$#^&@ by AoE damage, rogues, Tormented Rifleman's 12k shots after a ice arrow and those terrible terrible warrior things who hit my poor priest for more health then what she has. Pug's are the worst at this, I can say in the over 2 dozen times I have run this instance, there have been 2, I count them again for you. TWO! pugs I have been in who don't get me killed at least twice. Generally speaking, it's a wipe several times over before they get the hang of it. Leaving my little self sitting in the corner, pleading with them to get out of the corner and to stop being so completely lazy about it, usually to much failure and tears on my end when they refuse to listen. On the priest, I gave up. I stopped healing them in the corner and purposely let a couple of them die when they were being silly little aggro whores. I don't even get asked to try and trap anything the bulk of the times I am in there, they just go "oook LoS, we is good. Noob Smash!" In my mind it's usually accompanied by a mental image of them looking large, green and slightly orcish to fully illustrate the inanity of the situation.

I seriously feel more and more like this hall of reflection brings out the stupid in us. I never understood why it was a smart idea to back yourselves into a corner and hope for the best while something big bad and ugly wants to smash you into little horde pieces into that same said corner. Maybe he's redecorating? Besides the point, the HoS is a great instance. I actually love it. It's one of my favorites...When done in a way that doesn't make my hunter think about putting her head between the jaws of Errtu and telling him to bite down hard.

Undead CAN BE CC'd people...Traps, Shackles, Repentance, Turn Evil. That crazy aoe undead move that stuns undead that pallies do...yeah that works as well. Not every pug you run of HoR is going to have a tank and healer of the 5k+ GearScore range, hoping to skate through every single time is just teaching you bad game play techniques.

If you're having issues with this instance or know those who are, when are you in a group with someone who cant CC at all? Almost never I can assure you, then perhaps you could pass this little number onto your friends and neighbors...Because I am about to bedazzle you! *jazz hands*


that was too much wasn't it...


Halls of Reflection...A How to Guide to keep your friendly neighborhood priest happy, alive and not willing to sacrifice you to save her repair bill.

• One of the most simple elements of this fight is that you can position yourself in a ideal way to deal with them. As a priest the most effective way I have found was standing on the anvil in the center of the room on the dais. It means anything that comes for me has to go through one of my 4 party friends to reach me in a more ideal situation. It also allows me to zoom out ridiculously far, spin around in a 360 degree spike and shackle as freely as my little heart desires.
• Standing near the door is another appropriate means of dealing with the undead in this room. Allowing you to SEE what is heading your way with a nasty look in his glowing undead eyes.
• ALWAYS CC the Riflemen. They hit, hard. Dealing a nasty ice block stun and followed by a huge crit that is available after said iceblock. I've seen it one shot clothies. You were warned. If you have the abilities to, do it. Dont wait for permission. These guys have been the number one cause of wipes. Some healer get smashed on by these as they are shooting through the wall.
• Healers can CC too?!...I was serious there. Not only are you now a leet healer for doing so, you can prove you can multitask! Channel your inner PvPer!
  
• Don't go past your tank into the room. Unless it is for a CC purpose, they will aggro to the closest one they spot and if that is you. Enjoy the flight back to your corpse.
• Watch the mage's. If there's more then one who is capable of CC these are the second priority to keep locked down. Their AoE is nasty and they love to go after the clothies, healers and little hunter's who seem like easy targets.
• I repeat, Do NOT expect someone to save your @ss in here. After the first boss it's hell on wheels and you not only have to watch what you are doing, what you are CC'ing but you have to be extremely aware of what's going on with the tank. He can't pick up every single one of them usually on that 7-8th wave of undead. It gets hectic, make sure you are capable of watching out for your own hide at that point. Using any means of threat reduction, threat dropping, or threat transference you have at your disposal.

I listened to WoW.com's broadcast the other day. If you haven't you should go check it out, they brought up a lot of valid points. Bringing up things that the general community can be doing since blizzard is bringing CC back. I fully agree, we are the ones who need to change our habits from what we've learned this Expansion. We need to function as our role and class and learn how best to use what we have readily available to us. Blizzard has already made it ridiculously easy for people to gear, raid and so on. But we can't expect them to make this easy for us as well or we might as well just be saying we'd rather go play Neopets or the like. Blizzard has issued us a challenge, to step up to the plate and bring CC back into the fold.

I know I intend to answer the challenge. How about you?